of interpreting at AMU Tymczynska and Marta Kajzer-Wietrzny - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The pedagogical evaluation of SL IVY with students of interpreting at AMU Tymczynska and Marta Kajzer-Wietrzny Department of Translation Studies Faculty of English Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland INTERPRETER-MEDIATED INTERACTIONS: METHODOLOGIES AND MODELS Rome, 7-9 November 2013

Outline 1. aims 2. rationale 3. participants and procedure 4. materials and sample practice scenarios 5. macro- and micro-analysis of student data 6. outcomes and follow-up

Aims ● assess the suitability of the IVY solution for interpreter training by analysing: (a) self-perceived learning success (macro level) (b) individual students ’ practice (micro level) ● suggest possible method of integrating SL IVY in interpreter training

Rationale ● situated learning * life-like scenarios: translation as a ‘situated’ cognitive activity (Kiraly 2005) ● blended learning and teaching “a systematic combination of co-present (face-to-face) interactions and technologically-mediated interactions between students, teachers and learning resources ” (Bliuc et al. 2007: 234) ● autonomous/self-directed learning * self-management (contextual control), * self-monitoring (cognitive responsibility), * motivation: entering and task (Garrison 1997) ● self-perceived learning success via introspection

Participants • 2-year MA Conference Interpreting Programme at AMU • working languages: PL, DE, EN, FR • 17 first-year students in week 4 of training • 22 - 25 years old (14 female, 3 male) • intermediate computer skills

Evaluation procedure STAGE 1: Induction to SL IVY demonstrating the environment (cf. Ritsos et al. 2013), creating avatars, etc. STAGE 2: Individual tutorial sessions instructions for available working modes and E-diary STAGE 3: Self-study period (24 October-09 November) self-study in SL IVY with pedagogic materials and E-diary STAGE 4: Feedback tutor-moderated in-class discussion

Materials • recordings o PL, EN, DE, FR monologues o bilingual PL, EN, DE and FR dialogues • transcripts • learning activities o generic: preparatory, skills-based and reflective activities o language-specific: preparatory and reflective activities

Sample interpreting sessions 1. 'brief' 2. topic research 3. listening 4. recall of main ideas using visualisation 5. glossary building 6. liaison interpreting w/recording 1. 'brief' 7. quality assessment 2. specific preparatory activities 8. reflective activities 3. consecutive interpreting w/notes 4. specific reflective activities

Macro Analysis: SELF-PERCEIVED LEARNING SUCCESS Focus on students’ A. discrete interpreting-related skills B. professional awareness C. self-assessment skills

Discrete interpreting skills (A) Preparation Source text “I practiced anticipation and I comprehension actually managed to anticipate the speaker successfully on a number of occasions” (AMU Student 10) “I managed to focus on active listening Memory and identifying the structure of the speech” (AMU Student 12) “With every new fragment I would remember longer utterances” Target text (AMU Student 16) production “After listening to my interpretation I managed to identify some minor mistakes but I realised that my output in Polish was quite fluent and that I spoke more slowly and calmly” (AMU Student 17)

Professional awareness (B) “I know that in the future I would have to prepare for every "I assumed that in professional interpreting assignment so in this situations I would not have a case I should have read about chance to listen to the original Cannes before I started interpreting” speech twice, so I decided to (AMU Student 17). interpret right after the first listening even if my comprehension was not satisfactory" (AMU Student 5) “there were phrases which I found difficult to interpret and which led to long pauses in my output but this made me realise that sometimes one has to interpret some ideas more generally in order to avoid long pauses in the interpretation” (AMU Student 7)

Self-assessment skills (C) “As I was listening to my interpretation I spotted a tendency of repeating the same words and phrases. I need to widen my vocabulary (also in my mother “As I listened to my tongue) and try to look for interpretation I realised synonyms” I should work on my (AMU Student 6) grammar more” (AMU Student 6) “I realised that I speak too fast and use many empty “Listening to my interpretation a fillers. Moreover, couple of times and comparing it to I gesticulate too much” the original speech (using transcripts) (AMU Student 14) helped me to detect and eliminate many mistakes” (AMU Student 15)

Outcomes of Macro Analysis • students perceived improvement in various discrete interpreting-related skills • students tried to behave professionally from the very start of their interpreting practice • autonomous practice can help students develop self- assessment skills “if unsupervised practice sessions are to be useful, students need to be able to assess their own performance and identify their weaknesses. ” (Sandrelli 2005: 4)

Micro Analysis: CASE STUDIES Focus on students’ A. student profiles B. approaches to learning C. strategies and skills

Student profiles (A) Frequent user Moderate user Infrequent user Total practice time 780 min Total practice time in 6 days 360 min Total practice time in 3 days 270 min in 3 days

Approaches to learning (B) Entwistle and Peterson (2004: 415) Deep Strategic Surface ● ● well-organised meaning-seekers ● reproducers of content, ● uncover underlying ● focused on academic memorisers principles content and grades ● study to fulfill syllabus ● relate to previous ● carefully manage study requirements knowledge and time and effort ● tend to feel pressure experience ● and anxiety want to achieve personal ● critically monitor and syllabus-related goals progress

Strategies and skills (C)

Frequent • worked with challenging topics, vocabulary, accents User • focused on improving active listening, memory skills, fluency of delivery • prepared extensively: preparation activities, glossary, analysis of brief, online sources and corpora • listened to each fragment once • assessed interpretations with reference to transcripts • quickly solved interpreting problems Deep (e.g. numbers, proper names) by listening again and referring to transcripts Approach

• worked with familiar topics Moderate • aimed to interpret longer chunks User • focused on preparation, anticipation, concentration, note-taking, intonation • organised studying: preparation, interpretation, assessment (over time extended preparation) • assessed interpreting quality impressionistically (w/o recordings) • gradually solved memory and comprehension problems by improving note-taking and concentration Strategic (multiple interpretations of problematic chunks) Approach

• chose ‘easy’ topics and materials • Infrequent aimed to improve memory, fluency and overall delivery User (disregarded e.g. comprehension, analysis skills) • practiced in a chaotic, superficial way (poor preparation, no recording, reflective activities before interpretation, interpretation interrupted by preparatory exercises) • got distracted easily: had to listen twice • did not reflect on coping strategies (unsolved problems with anticipation, active listening, longer chunks, meta-comments, lexical retrieval) • Surface had problems with proper names, abbreviations, numbers (partly solved by note-taking) Approach

Outcomes of Micro Analysis • students tried to improve too many skills at once • some practice sessions would benefit from better organisation • different approaches to learning need individualised tutor guidance (scaffolding skills and strategies)

MACRO ANALYSIS MICRO ANALYSIS students’ self -perceived learning case studies indicate success proves they can tutor guidance is needed learn autonomously BLENDED SETTING

INTERPRETER TRAINING IN BLENDED SETTINGS Students ● need to know what skills and strategies to develop and in what order to practice them ● benefit more from well- structured sessions

INTERPRETER TRAINING IN BLENDED SETTING Tutors ● set a hierarchy of skills to be developed ● teach strategies that can be used to attain those skills (e.g. mnemonic, note-taking) ● suggest ways in which interpreting sessions in IVY should be structured (preparation, scaffolded practice, reflection, using learning activities, online sources and corpora) ○ create the perfect blend : adjustable to individual needs

FOLLOW-UP: eVIVA • investigate interpreter training opportunities in 3D environments, video-based and video-conferencing settings • develop further guidance for autonomous and collaborative interpreting practice • equal focus on prepared materials and live interactions (students and clients) • discourse processing model of (consecutive/liaison) interpreting: focus on interpreting challenges (Braun and Kohn 2012: 200-201)